Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-06-17
POPULAR SCIENCE.
Description of Practical Discoveries Con
denssd for Practical Readers.

Professor Trowbri3ge's plan Of subma-
rine telephony, in which speech was 70 be
transmitted between vessels at sea with
out the aid of any connecting wire, mas
been abandoned as impracticable, and
the system upon which Mr.. Edison has
been experimenting in Florida is more
promising of good results. In this sys-
TEN the telephone signals, by long and
short explosive sounds instead of BIZ
spoken words and communications, have
been successfully exchanged through the
water between vessels from three to four
miles apart, with the prospect that the
working limit may be increased with i'm
provement in The apparatus = Electrical
review.
Crabs, which are supposed to shed their
shells every year, do not often shed them
after they have attained their full siz4,
and the creatures become victims to bar
nacles and all sorts of marine growths
that fasten themselves upon the shell. A
remarkable example OF this may be seen
in the British Museum, where has been
placed an old crab of the edible species,
with some half dozen large oysters
fixed to its back, which load, ever in
Creasing, the old crab was doomed to
carry to the end of its days. Another
curious specimen preserved is that Of e
hairy crab, which, though not larger it.
self than a walnut, Is ssddled with q
sponge as big as mans fist.
Cation has pointed out some very curl
Gus facts concerning the children of pro-
fessional men. He found, from study
of the Incredibly OF the members of some
of the largest scientific societies of Lon
don, that the legal profession presented
the most eminent men and the fewest
idiots. The medical profession came
next; and lastly clergymeD, who pro-
duced the smallest number of eminent
men and the largest number Of idiots and
feeble-minded. The lawyers gave origin
to six times es many eminent men as the
clergy. The clergy gave origin to six
times as many idiots and feeble-minded
as the lawyers.
NJ. Ligner, an Austrian meteorologist,
claims TO have asCertained, after careful
investigation, that the moon has an in
fuence on g magnatized needle varying
with its phases and its destinations. The
is SAID to be more promi-
nently noticeable when the moon is near
earth, and to be very marked when she
is passing from the full 10 her first or sec
Ond quarter. The disturbances ere found
to be at their maximum when the moon
is in the plane of the equator, and greater
during the southern than it is during the
northern deClinalion.
To make positive copies of drawings.
coat suitable paper with per cent. So
luton Of bichrOnate of ammonia, to
which little grape sugar has been add
ed, and dry II the dark. The paper cou-
tanning the drawing is LAID upon il and
exposed 70 the light until the prepared /
paper has assumed gray color; now dip |
INTO a per cent. solution of nitrate of |
silver, one-tenth of the volume of which |
consists OF acetiC acid The positive !
mage developed thereby consists of4b55
;hromate of silver, which becomes DARK (
brown on drying.
1t is generally supposed that pneur1Qs
liR is due to the accidental penetration on
poetic microbes into the system, cut the
observations of NJ. Jaccoud, French
tudenU OF the subject, show that the dis
ase really results from the development
nder favorable conditions of microbic
.erms permanently present in the sys-
EN-. A chief condition OF such develop /
1ent is sudden chill, which explains the
requent coincidence of lung affections
Iith abrupt changes OF temperature.
This was the way country blacksmith
as seen removing that portion of an ak
aDdle from an ak that remained in the
re, the break being close to the iron: